@ simon

Closing the mouth of Morecambe Bay

Yet another nail in the coffin for the wildlife of Morecambe Bay. With the existing Barrow Windfarm, this Walney one, the Shell Flats site recently approved off Cleveleys, the pending Ormonde and West Duddon wind farm projects, and the exisitng gas rigs, there will effectively be a fence across the mouth of Morecambe Bay creating a serious barrier for migrating seabirds. Morecambe Bay is an internationally recognised RAMSAR site for wildlife, yet the goverment appears to be prepared to allow it to be seriously degraded by allowing these developments.

Lepidoptera?

Tate = monster food???

Surely the point of having a tellytubby like Catherine Tate in the show is that she makes a nice unsympathetic victim for one of the monsters to eat? I'm thinking of something like the giant insect Zarbi from Patrick Troughton days, ripping her up and sucking her blood and fat dry. Now THAT would be an episode worth watching.

Or maybe have her impregnated by a parasitic alien lothario and have her explode on screen while giving birth? That would give the special effects boys something fun to put together.

errata

Novell backed by Microsoft next?

Here's the worry. If I've understood the case correctly, Microsoft were helping to finance SCO's case by paying them licencing fees? Now in the last year or so, M$ have also been cosying up to Novell, with agreements over payments and interoperability. Now that Novell clearly own the copyrights to Unix, whats to stop M$ backing Novell in a joint extortion attack on the Linux community, especially given M$ recent patent claim statements?

"Pump Petrol"

Based on my readings of the history of the IOM TT, "pump petrol" was a term used to describe the low-octane stuff available via the "petroleum manufacturing pool" during and immediately after WW2. 1958 seems a bit late for that, hence maybe the confusion over what it meant. Anyway, the implication was a VERY low octane blend with no chemical enhancement - I'd guess something equivalent to 90 Octane (standard UK unleaded is 95 octane). If there are any WW2 historians out there who can clarify, please do!

Meanwhile by "gasoline" in the Indycar sense I presume you mean something like the 100 octane "5-star" needed by the original Hillman Imps? If the flames didn't get you the lead toxicity would....Beside which the stuff burnt so hot it warped the alloy cylinder heads

F1 and Ethanol

Didn't they try using an ethanol mix fuel in F1 and Indy-car racing in the sixties? It was banned for safety reasons, I can remember seeing film of a car on fire, the driver burning, and being left to burn because the marshalls/stewards couldn't see the alcohol flames - which are invisble in daylight.

Back in the 1930's motorbikes raced using a methanol/water mix and that was even worse, though it did produce a heck of a lot of power - effectively you ended up with a steam -assisted internal combustion engine as the heat of ignition superheated the water.

If you want to use biofuels then the secret has to be minmal processing - just crush the plant, extract the oil and burn. Don't spend energy on chemical conversion to alcohol or biodiesel, just burn the crude oil. Making biodiesel is wasteful in that you need to use sodium methoxide to trans-esterify the fats - and you end up with unsellable glycerin (world glut) and impure sodium hydroxide as waste products, while fermenting the biomass to alcohol would require an energy-intensive distillaton stage.

Geemore.com

I cannot believe that the Mohsans didn't register geemore,com. Given their supposed internet knowledge (ie they owned Supanet until that was forced into administration last year) it seems incredible that they would miss out on registering that site. Good luck to whoever owns it - AND TAKE LEGAL ADVICE IF THE BROTHERS OFFER TO BUY

Union

Guys & Gals - I see the GMB have got involved. Good - they've had a lot of history dealing with the Mohsans at Time and they have seen all the tricks before.

For those of us who were in the Union at Time/Granville they did a good job at getting more cash. I know it may sound like bolting the stable door now the company has gone under, but I really would suggest you go along and see what they have to say.

Based on what I've seen here it looks like the new company may be trying to short-change you. If you join the GMB you have a good chance of blocking them, and of getting what you are owed. Please go along and see what they have to say. For £10 / month (or thereabouts) it really is worth it.

I repeat - they got their members more cash at Time, they should be able to do the same for you as whats happening is a virtual rerun, with the same people behind it again.

VAT Registration applied for????????

VAT registration applied for. Well for a normal company thats an eight week minimum wait at present, But for an IT company - especially one whose (new) investors have been subject to carousel fraud investigations in the past (though never proven) that will take more like eight months to be approved. I don't see Evesham doing much trading for a while - unless through one of the brother's existing companies.

Regarding the payments, at Time eventually everyone got redundancy payments through the DTI. Also the GMB union took the company to court in an undefended case and claimed for the lack of consultation prior to redundancy. The GMB won the case for their members, who got an additional payoff - unfortunately the rest didn't. However the principle applies - you should be able to get a protective award as compensation for the lack of consultancy IN ADDITION to redundancy. I strongly suggest you all put together a collective joint claim to court through one set of solicitors.

BB Site

Chaps - FYI if you need a site to contact each other on, the old Time Independant Employees Forum is still existant (though not used much) as was specifically set up to be a point of contact in cases like this. Its at http://pub2.bravenet.com/forum/123673187

Unfortunataly the other two forums tinycon.com and tinysux.com were both shut by legal action. However the ITEF is still there, works and is available for postings.

The other point is get together to act.

(1) Push for a rapid redundancy payoff. If the old company has been closed and is cashless, then you have to claim from the DTI. Do it as quickly as possible

(2) As there has been no period of consultation over the redundancy you have an additional legal claim for this failure. If you take them to court you will win. Speak to your Union over this - if you don't have one, try discussing it with the GMB - they've had a longrunning campaign against the way the Mohsans treat their staff.

Evesham fiasco

Please don't assume the Evesham management are to blame: they are probably between a rock and a hard place and have no input into whats happened. I would think it likely that the whole episode is orchestrated by the Mohans and sounds like a rerun of the Time administration. There we all knew the place was going tits-up but nothing was said by "the management". In both cases all the directors - bar the MD - did a runner before the eventual closure, presumably in objection to what was planned by the brothers, who were the real power in the business.

If they've managed it as well as they did the Time closure, all the money will have been extracted from the business and those redundant will be looking to the the goverment for their redundancy. At Time the DTI were involved at an early stage and rushed through the redundancy quicker than normal. If they are not involved yet - get them in, quickly. Also a point to remember is that at Time those in the Trade Union effectively got paid off twice - once for redundancy, but also a very similar award due to lack of consultation prior to the redundancy. If any of you are in a Union, get them to liase with the GMB over what happened at Time - there is a useful precedent there that you could be able to follow.

One thing seems for sure - there's no future for anyone at the Evesham site. There is so much spare capacity at Simonstone that there would be no point running both.

role reversal

what would have happened if the roles had been reversed? A male guard watching a female inmate bashing the beaver? Would he have complained? And if he had, would anyone take the complaint seriously? Would the woman have got 60 days for pushing the pussy? I think not! This chap probably has a valid claim for sexual discrimination.

Evesham takeover

If the Mohsans follow the same pattern as the Tiny takeover, they will be negotiating a purchase of the stock and assets and will have put in place a new company to transfer those assets to - ie the new company you've just found.

However what you'll probably find is that Evesham will give up negotiating with anyone else, believing they have a deal- and the brothers will hold back on signing the deal. Eventually due to loackof progress the bankers will step in and force administration - and the brothers will be in a position to make a quick, cheaper offer to the administrators because they have everything in place already.

Anyone know who Evesham's bankers and auditors are - and which company is lined up as administrators if the banks pull the plug? If Grant Thornton are appointed things could become very interesting as they sold Tiny to Time and also sold the surviving Time assets back to "new" Time.

And of course this will be done under conditions of utmost secrecy toward the staff of both companies.